Change Management for A New Clinical Future

Progress, moving forward with improvements, is a key perspective of leadership. Looking down the road to the future creates both anxiety and excitement. As a member of the leadership team, finding one’s way and taking the calculated risk with accurate data and a foundation on knowledge is what drives us to progress.

By definition, change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. The current definition of change management includes both organizational change management processes and individual change management models, which together are used to manage the people side of change.

Over the past several years, my IS department, like many in the country, have been under several forces of change in management, personnel, leadership and process. From our CIO’s vision of information systems, bringing on several new people in current and created leadership positions and transitioning others, his progression to new future of IS has been transformational.Ten years ago, information system departments encapsulated themselves in technology and, as a department in a multi-hospital network, could not provide our users support expected of such an integral cog in the wheel of patient care.Transitioning to a patient-centric model is one of new change but is also vital to the growth of our healthcare network and expansion to our hopsital of the future in MontgomeryCounty.

Our vision of what the future could be is based on who we are working for – our patients.We are all part of the process of change: new desktops to bring critical data to the bedside; a new wireless network allowing clinical access to timely critical information; software enhancements providing managerial and administrative awareness of ongoing trends in patient care; our new information system to bring the best of care to our patients network-wide.

The futures of our patients are formed by our hands directed by what is imagined in our minds.Each of us has a responsibility to quest new ideas, perform above our expectations and overcome barriers which, at first may seem insurmountable. In the words or our namesake Albert Einstein, “If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”We stand on the creations and ideas of our coworkers to look into our own future and manage our change for a better patient experience. We are the future; let us lead the way.